Unspoken
by Myurra-K
Summary: Fate proves to them very suddenly that life is fragile, and can fade with a single breath. While on the path to forgive himself, Hatsuharu has to first understand exactly what had happened to them, and why it is that he can't help but feel he has blood on his hands. How do you realise your love for someone when they're already gone? HaruxKyo, slash, character death.
1. I: Hearts That Bleed

**Unspoken**

_Part I  
Hearts That Bleed_

**.:.**

_At first, I thought he'd just passed out on the pavement, unable to hold his liquor._

_.:._

Yuki poured the tea without spilling anything. Unlike Haru, his hands weren't in a near-constant state of trembling, but it didn't pass the Ox's knowledge that the Rat's grip was white-knuckled and probably very close to cracking the porcelain.

Haru couldn't bring himself to thank Yuki for pouring his tea, so he just forced the corner of his mouth to twitch upward in a false smile. Yuki returned it. Shigure didn't bother doing the same.

"You know, Haru," the Dog began instead, waiting until his young cousin lifted his steeled-over gaze to continue, "Yuki refused to see someone, but I think it might be a good idea for you to talk it out. It doesn't even have to be a professional. You can just say something about it to one of us, if you want."

_Yuki's lip's bleeding_, Haru noticed. The Rat had chewed the skin so much that they had become chapped. He then began to nibble at the chapped skin in a new nervous tick he'd seemed to develop, until he actually bit it away. Haru felt a little guilty for the habit his cousin had picked up.

"Maybe the two of you can talk about it together."

Haru closed his eyes shook his head, pretending not to see the disappointment on Shigure's face.

.:.

_We had laughed, wondering how he'd only managed to get this far since leaving, and for a moment we taunted him, hoping to rouse him from his unconscious state so we could all walk home together._

.:.

"Sohma!" the teacher shouted, the chalk clacking furiously to period the end of her sentence, her arm crooked at an awkward angle as she turned around to glare at the boy who had sprawled over his desk uncaringly, arms dangling over the edge.

"_Hm_yeah?"

"Detention!"

"For_ what_!"

The teacher had thought he'd been sleeping through her class, but even though he hadn't been, in his efforts to disprove her theories, he'd landed himself in detention anyway. Apparently smashing your table in half isn't a healthy way to debate.

Nobody ever told him that before now, but hell, now he knew, right?

Kyo grunted when he walked in, the corner of his mouth curling into a smirk. "Again?" he asked, kicking his feet up over his desk, hiding his notebook behind his knees. Haru just shrugged and took the seat beside him, edging their desks a little closer when the supervisor briefly left the room after marking off his name.

"I could ask you the same thing," Haru replied, and Kyo noticed how his cousin had moved their desks closer to read what he was writing. Paling a little, he slammed the notebook closed, glaring at the Ox. "What are you always writing?"

"None of your damn business, brat."

Despite their words, they sat in comfortable companionship. The supervisor, who had noticed the two Sohma regulars had taken to sitting by one another recently, barely blinked an eye when he returned a minute or so later. It was odd seeing as most of the people in detention either split onto opposite sides of the room on their own accord or by the teacher's orders, but the cousins seemed to not cause problems, so he left them be.

"Back to work," he snapped, watching the way the older Sohma tore a blank page out of his notebook to give to the younger. Hatsuharu immediately began writing random notes down onto the provided paper, and Kyo returned to his private notebook.

As long as they didn't fight, the supervisor didn't care.

.:.

_I had nudged him with my foot, a little roughly if I recall, still a little bitter with him, but Uotani's voice in my ear asking if he was alright landed a cold rock of fear in my gut._

.:.

"Rat," Kyo asked as the silver-haired teen entered the room, quickly closing his notebook, causing Haru to glance at the odd cat in confusion. He'd been just fine writing in it while sharing a couch with the ox. "A question?"

Yuki sighed, folding himself onto the armchair closest to the side of the couch Haru was occupying. "If you must," he replied, tucking his small bare feet beneath himself.

"The lab test is tomorrow, right?" he'd asked. Haru, familiar with his cousin's unusually playful side, could hear the sly tone in that voice.

Yuki paled. "Uh...y-yeah."

Kyo grinned a little at that, before turning to Haru. "Ha! Told you! Now let me study!" he accused, leaping off his end of the couch and storming upstairs, not in anger but just in that loud way they'd all become accustomed to associating with Kyo, the notebook tucked under his arm.

Haru sighed, remembering that he'd accused Kyo of lying about studying to get rid of him. He wouldn't be the first person, but apparently the cat wasn't lying. It kinda made him feel a little better.

Yuki was still a little sickly.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Just the lab test tomorrow."

"What," Haru started, being sure to keep his voice level, "not going so good in biology?"

"It's not that," Yuki replied with a shake of his head, silvery hair falling into his eyes.

"Oh?"

"We're partnered in alphabetical order, so Kyo's my lab partner."

There was an odd sound filtered through the paper wall that seperated them from Shigure's study, the Dog no doubt listening in.

"We have to dissect a rat."

The sound became obnoxious, hysterical laughter, their older cousin seeming to have fallen from his chair with a loud thump.

.:.

_The alcohol had slowed my brain, allowing me to take in with crystalline clarity almost overy little detail of my surroundings, so I'll never forget exactly what it was I saw that night, no matter how hard I may one day want to forget._

.:.

Hatsuharu never opened the notebook, but at the first chance he'd gotten, he'd stolen it from the cold room that housed all of Kyo's posessions. He wanted to protect it, make sure nobody read it out of a need to understand just what had happened.

He remembered every time Kyo held the thick black hard-cover book to his chest or under his arm, refusing to let anybody even read one word. Not that anybody really could – Kyo's handwriting looked as though he'd turned himself into a cat at will, dipped his paws in ink, and tried to scrawl each letter with his claws.

Apparently, where Kyo had lost most of his marks at school was actually the illegibility of his handwriting.

Nonetheless, Haru never tried to read it. He opened to the first half-page once, seeing the single word scrawled in the middle of the page._ Mihashi_.

As he understood it, that was Kyo's mother's maiden name, before she'd married a Sohma.

He felt sick to his stomach just reading that one word.

Yuki caught him with it one evening, after dropping by at Hatori's request for his check-up. "Isn't that Kyo's?" he'd said from the doorway, startling Hatsuharu, who had been staring intently at the black cover, as though trying to understand the feeling their cousin had put into this object.

The ox didn't bother trying to deny it, but he did place it under his thigh, breaking Yuki's intent gaze upon it.

"What'd he write in it?" Yuki asked then, stepping into the room, awkwardly rubbing at his elbow.

Haru shrugged, "I dunno. Never read it," he finally spoke, sounding as brokenly flat as ever.

Yuki frowned at him. "So why do _you_ have it?" he asked, almost sounding offended, as though he didn't understand why the ox thought he deserved to claim such a precious object. "Why'd you steal it?"

"So _you_ can't read it."

.:.

_I crouched, swaying a little as I drunkenly tried to balance on the balls of my feet, before grabbing my cousin's stiff shoulder, wondering absently how he could breathe with his face plastered to the tarmac like that._

.:.

Haru stole the chance to glance at Kyo from the corner of his eye, unbenownst to him that Yuki was giving him a calm stare from across the table. He'd very firmly asked Tohru to sit beside him so that Haru would either have to sit at the end of the table or beside Kyo, not really wanting to deal with the other boy leaning into him and trying to cutely syphon food off his plate.

The ox seemed to have no complaint, quite happily taking a seat beside the cat, who had habitually served their guest cousin some rice while he still had the ladle in his hand. It was this gesture that caused the bi-haired teen to continually glance in curiosity at the seemingly distracted Kyo.

The cat had been calmer since their mid-year report a week earlier, aside from an incident of punching the lockers that afternoon. He hadn't let anybody aside from Uotani see it, but the teachers had been giving the redhead some fairly odd, if not susicious, stares over the edge of their books and the rims of their glasses. Their literacy teacher didn't even pull up the boy for swearing the last time, and last Yuki checked the woman was devoutly religious about good behaviour in schools.

Yuki was curious just how far the boundaries of this 'nice' Kyo stretched. Eyeing the salt shaker by a tanned hand, he feigned sincerity.

"Could someone pass the salt?" he asked, amethyst eyes glancing around the table.

Kyo glanced up, before grabbing the shaker beside his plate and leaning over the table, holding it out into other teen's reach. Completely uninterested, the cat was already looking back down at his dinner, clearly not expecting his rival to pause before accepting the salt.

Shigure dropped his chopsticks.

.:.

_There were too colours that seemed would forever stain my vision now – red and white._

.:.

Black Haru sidled up to the detention room, arms crossed and a smirk on his face, already planning on giving Kyo an in-depth rundown on how he'd made a first-year messenger piss himself, ultimately landing himself here for another week on top of the previous term he was already serving.

He'd been running the incident over in his head, chuckling the entire leisurely walk to the room that may as well be an after-school club for the two Sohma badasses of the school, as well as a few other problem kids that he saw often enough lingering in the back row.

He and Kyo always sat at the front by the windows, Kyo beside the wall, Haru on the desk next to his. It was routine. They'd been there that long they'd scrawled 'Sohma' into the wood of both desks with Kyo's compass one time the year before. They went whether or not they actually had to, even though Haru always had to, because the trouble they got themselves in usually amounted to weeks of pre-planned detainment.

Kyo didn't flip out and trash classrooms out of nowhere, though, so sometimes he didn't have to come. He always did though, saying it was easier to study in a silent classroom than it was at home with Yuki, Tohru, and Shigure to distract him.

He opened the door with a flourish that would have made Ayame proud, a bright proud grin on his face as he entered, eyes instantly going to the seat where Kyo sat every afternoon, expecting to see the senior boy with his back to the wall and his knees up, scribbling away in his little diary thing.

He found an empty seat.

The expression fell of his face, leaving him Black but looking outwardly as though he were White. The supervisor gave Haru an odd look. "Sohma didn't have detention today," the man informed him, then marked Hatsuharu off with a scratchy pen that didn't seem to ink the first eight tries.

Haru basically trudged across the room, slumping into Kyo's usual seat, and glared across the room. The other students in the back gave him odd, nervous looks. They knew he was in one of his bad moods. Usually Kyo was there to humour him, calming the tempest of his younger cousin's personality, ultimately reverting him.

For the first time in a year, not including a couple of days when Kyo was sick and hadn't come to school, he had no company.

Saki Hanajima, a girl who was basically a mutual friend, watched him from across the room, probably doing her freaky brain-wave thing, before picking up her possessions and moving to the seat behind him.

"You are upset," she said simply, before handing him a few sheets of paper. He only ever brought a pen to detention – Kyo had went out and bought an exercise book just for him, handling it himself so that the ox didn't forget to bring it. He wasn't sure how she knew that, seeing as this was only the second time he'd seen her there.

He didn't say thankyou, but he hoped he was exuding the appropriate amount of appreciation for her to sense.

Why hadn't Kyo come? Was he still pissed?

.:.

_There was a shriek ringing in my ears, the sound oddly muted as though I was hearing it underwater, but I don't know who's - whether it was male or female, or if there was only one single outward cry of horror, and I can't even be sure it wasn't really my own._

.:.

Haru hadn't eaten lunch with the group for five days when Yuki and Uo came looking for him. The blonde girl was red-eyed and tight-lipped, and didn't say anything the entire time, but she kept a keen watch on the interaction between the two cousins, as though she knew something.

They found the underclassman seated at the base of a tree near the main courtyard, the one part of the school that was teeming with bodies and amounts of unwanted attention. Thankfully, everyone was leaving the bi-haired teen alone.

Haru was probably just as attractive as Yuki, but his attitude both won and lost him favour among females, and unanimously discouraged them from approaching him.

Yuki wasn't afraid of his cousin.

He reached out to grab at the younger Sohma's shoulder, and White Haru instantly batted him away, glaring hard at him.

"Don't touch me."

Somehow, seeing White Haru acting like this was vastly more frightening, and disturbing.

With a throat dry and croaky from crying, and it was now visible that his eyes were just as red as Uo's, Yuki protested. "Don't ignore me. Please, don't."

Uo glanced around, glaring harshly at the few people who had turned to watch their exchange curiously, and most of them turned their heads away for the moment. She stood guard as the two cousins exchanged their words.

"Go away, rat," he said harshly, and Yuki actually winced.

"Don't you take this out on me. You think I don't already feel guilty enough as it is?" the older boy hissed, and Haru growled.

"Oh woe is you, _Prince!_" the younger Sohma stood, pushing himself off the tree behind him. His eyes were darkened, flashing in such a way that Yuki was no longer sure what side he was dealing with. He ignored he collective attention of the student body around them. " If anyone should feel guilty, then next to me you don't even have the right to the feeling!"

"Hatsu, just-"

Yuki cut himself off, shocked as he found himself blocking an aggressive punch from the boy that was once his admirer and would do anything to stop someone from attacking him.

"Don't you dare call me that! Don't you use that name!"

That was Kyo's name for him.

.:.

_I say his name, I say it again, and before I really know what I've done I have him on his back, shaking him gently by the shoulders, screaming his own name at him, but he doesn't look at me – his open eyes may as well have been made from glass the way they just stared upwards at the pitch overcast above our heads._

.:.

"If I were to write a story about you, what would you want it to be about?" Haru asked, letting himself into the cat's room. Kyo inconspicuously shut the book he was writing in, no longer snapping it closed whenever the ox entered possible snatching distance – even Black Haru hadn't made an attempt on his privacy, and he fully trusted his cousin not to try and read it, so it seemed.

The idea warmed Haru.

"Why would you write a story about me?" Kyo asked in bemusement, resting the plastic tip of his pen against his lower lip, teeth scraping it in an absent nibble that caught Haru's eye.

The younger shrugged, sliding the door behind himself, passing the cat who's head rolled to follow his cousin's curious path, and sat on the end of Kyo's bed full-lotus, gripping the straps of his school bag he had yet to remove. "The assignment is to write a story about one of our favourite people, preferably a family member."

Kyo scoffed in amusement.

"What?" he asked, "you're my favourite cousin. I spend most of my time with you. Why wouldn't I write about you?"

"Yeah, whatever Haru," the redhead said disbelievingly, opening his book without hesitation and clicking his pen against his lip. He turned away, preparing to write again. Haru's brow twitched, _you'd think Kyo'd never had a compliment before. Stupid cat._

He froze at his own thoughts, realizing that it just may be a possibility that Kyo really never got complimented.

"I like you," he'd said simply before he'd even processed the thought, just knowing he meant reassure the other boy.

Somehow, the way Kyo stilled didn't really fit into the picture of gratefullness at being told something like that, and it didn't quite sink in why.

"There's a lot about you I admire. I enjoy being around you. You're usually fun, and you don't brush me off, you let me be around you. And really, that's all I've wanted, was for someone to just be around. You're the only one that understands what it's like to lack control over your emotions. The way I feel just can't be helped, and you understand that."

One day, Haru would look back on his words, and with the help of Kyo, he'd understand how his cousin could have wrong idea from them, but not today.

"So, I am going to write my story about you. You can't stop me, cuz," he said, finally pulling his backpack off his shoulders and into his lap. "And as long as you're writing, so am I."

Kyo stayed silent for a very long time after Haru's little monologue, only glancing over at his bed to see the cow sprawled over it with a blank double-page of a notebook, a pen, and a thoughtfully dazed expression.

Haru managed to write 'Kyo' in the top corner, as though to make sure he wouldn't forget who he was writing about, and 'You wouldn't think', before the sentence stopped abruptly. For the next two hours they didn't emerge from the room, Kyo's pen-tip furiously working away against rich paper. Haru's own paper didn't accumulate any more ink, his glazed stare set on the beautiful view outside the Cat's open external door, past the railing of the porch.

He was glad he had two months to complete his task.

.:.

_There was blood staining his lips, blood staining his temple, blood staining his hair, and when I brought my hand away from where I pressed it firmly to his chest to check for a heartbeat, my skin glistened with the thick, dark, sticky life._

.:.

When Haru kissed Kyo, he was Black, and he was purposely doing it to get under Kyo's, and also Yuki's, skin. Kyo had lain him flat on his ass in the middle of the corridore, and Yuki had tried to hide his uncharacteristic snicker behind his hand from his vantage point a few metres away, where Haru had counted on him being. The two of them walked off to class, the rat actually waiting for his fiery cousin, probably to congratulate him.

It left a now White Haru rubbing his bruised cheek, biting his lip for some reason or another, watching the stiff form of his favourite cat stalking down the hallway beside the rat. Something he never thought he'd see. Kyo must have earned favourable points with Yuki by dealing with Black Haru's lecherous nature so firmly.

It was all the result of being so damn muddled and confused, and greatly sexually frustrated. Yuki had actually shoved him off the other day, and since then he'd been getting antsy about how to go about approaching the rat afterwards.

Somehow, he'd gotten pissed off. And then he'd woken up horny, and hadn't had the time to 'release tension' because Momiji had let him sleep in and they were late, and so he was sexually frustrated, angry, and god Kyo's lips looked good, especially when they were stained a little with cherry juice as they just had been.

Upset with himself for angering his beloved cousins, he later made sure to have another student lead him to the history room where Kyo's class was, thankful the upperclassmen were being held in for five minutes during their lunch break for making very inventive paper planes out of the assessment task sheets.

He was tenderly pressing his fingertips to the bruise on his cheek, snapping attention to the first person out the door, and then the second, of whom happened to be Tohru. She flushed in happiness and greeted him.

"Hatsuharu!" she called, and behind her, Yuki stiffened. The older boy glanced back at Kyo, smirked a little creepily to himself, and directed Tohru away without a word to the ox. Kyo tried to sneak out and escape with them by falling into the protection of Uo and Hana who always walked behind the group, but his hair wasn't the best disguise for merging with a crowd.

He grabbed Kyo's braceletted hand, which was quickly ripped away, Kyo's expression a little shocked, pulse in his neck visibly jumping a little faster than normal. He waited to see if the older boy would walk off, but when he didn't, Haru sighed.

"Look, I'm sorry. Just...Black, you know?" he fumbled his apology, but it came out sounding basically like what he planned to say.

"Yeah, I know," Kyo replied.

"I didn't mean anything by it."

"I know," Kyo growled this time. Haru didn't notice.

"So, we cool?"

Kyo shrugged. "Whatever," he said. It was a little less than what Haru had hoped for, but more than he expected, so he smiled gratefully and took it as a positive thing.

"Good, I'm hungry, let's catch up with the others," he started off, catching sight of Momiji joining the quartet not too far ahead of them. Kyo followed silently behind, arms crossed, eyes watching his feet.

That afternoon, when Haru had come to detention, excited to tell Kyo his story, the boy wasn't there.

.:.

_I felt sick to my frozen stomach._

.:.

It was only four days after it happened when Yuki came to him, looking lost. Haru had been tracing his lips gently with his fingertip, staring up at the ceiling as though it would grant him his wish to have a warm pressure against them once more.

"We have to go back to school in two days," Yuki said as a greeting when he came into his younger cousin's room. He stared around it in curiosity, having not entered the room beyond the threshold for almost five years. He'd tried to avoid Haru as much as possible upon discovering the infatuation the Ox held for him, even after it waned.

Haru barely moved, just turned his head away from the ceiling and over to the older boy in acknowledgement.

Yuki's hair was a little oily, messy from the wind that had blown it askew. His eyes were bruised with the lack of a decent sleep. He looked as pale as usual, but the ivory skin that Haru had once found so attractive only reminded him of the pale, deathly colour stained with red, face holding a grey pallor that spoke tones of illness. Yuki physically looked as exhausted as Haru knew he himself did.

Yuki was clenching his fists when he sat down on the edge of Haru's bed, brushing against the younger boy's side. His teeth were grinding slowly, glassy amethyst eyes floating ahead. He was trying to keep himself from wringing his hands or worrying his lip.

"You shouldn't hold back so hard," Haru mumbled, the first thing he'd said to Yuki since that night. First thing he'd said to anyone other than Hatori since that night, actually.

Yuki's head snapped around to stare at him, and the older boy looked so brittle and worn down that for the briefest moment Haru found himself a little worried that his cousin would break with the gesture.

Haru brought his hand up to Yuki's face, brushing his thumb over the other's cheek. Subconsciously, Yuki's jaw slackened, and a look of pain filled his large eyes with the ache that then appeared. "Stop trying to hold back. Bite your lip if you want, pick at your nails if you want; stop trying to be so strong all the time."

Yuki was staring so intensely that Haru felt a flood of nerves erupt in his stomach.

When the older boy, with the beautiful face and the amazing heart, the one he had admired and sought after since his early childhood, looked at him like that, he wasn't sure that the feeling in his gut was actually a positive one.

There was a painful moment when Haru could hear his heart thundering in his ears, and his mind went numb except for the thought that Yuki's face was so close that his eyes couldn't focus, and suddenly it sunk in that his beloved cousin was kissing him. Yuki was actually _kissing_ him, having leaned over and meshed their lips together by choice, and it wasn't alright.

_This again..._

Rather than push the distraught teen away from him, Haru just lay there, blurry sights set on Yuki's closed eyes, and didn't respond to the kiss whatsoever.

For a moment, Haru wasn't sure who Yuki thought he was kissing, but even if it was him and not Kyo that the rat had lain his lips on, the other cursed boy knew he couldn't have returned the sentiment.

Yuki finally pulled away, hands either side of the other boy's head, staring down at the cousin that had loved him so dearly for so many years. It had long faded.

"Why'd you have to turn around and want something from me when I couldn't give it?" Haru said quietly. The result almost amazed him.

Yuki sat up, still turned to face his younger cousin, and glared so hard that the fire in his eyes that was usually only ever ignited by the Cat was for once directed at him. "Why'd you have to be so selfish?"

Haru pulled himself up onto his elbows. "Why'd you?" he snapped in return.

Yuki sighed then, the flame of hatred disappearing as fast as it had blown into life. "There are so many things I could have done differently," he whispered. Hatsuharu stared at Yuki for a little while longer, before dropping down from his elbows and laying flat again, glaring at the ceiling. Just minutes earlier it had been calming to stare at the blank white, but now it was just aggravatingly plain.

He'd let Yuki kiss him, right here, on his bed. _Kyo would kill me._

Yuki was looking at his hands when Haru glanced over at him, needing to break his eyes away from the ceiling.

Yuki spoke again. "I should have said this or I should have done that. I know you're right; I was selfish."

Haru grunted. Deciding that anything he looked at, whether it be his ceiling or Yuki, was bound to piss him off, he rolled onto his side, back turned to his cousin, shutting his eyes so tight he could see orange sparks in the darkness.

"Go pity yourself elsewhere."

.:.

_I was panicking, broken down to the barest core of my being, a small scared little child, one with high hopes and no connection to the cruel reality – he was lying in my arms yet he wasn't, but somehow I believed he could come back._

.:.

Haru wasn't sure why he did it, but he invited Kyo over to his place after school. They were last to leave the detention room, the teacher having already gone home, and Kyo was waiting at the door for him to find the pen he'd dropped. He finally spotted it, against the foot of one of the tables, and scooped it up.

He turned around, and Kyo was just standing there, looking at him.

They usually didn't talk much after detention, just wandering to the front of the school in silence before they went there seperate ways. It shocked him a little that the cat would actually wait for him just so they could fulfull their little routine.

"You wanna hang out at mine for a bit?" Hatsuharu asked, righting himself and tucking his pen into his pocket. Kyo's garnet eyes widened for a second, but the other boy shrugged.

"Sure," he'd said, as though he didn't really care either way, but Haru noticed the way the cat's eyes seemed lit up with happiness at the offer. Kyo was too proud to admit he was glad Haru had asked.

"Cool, I got some new movies I wanna watch. You like action, or horror?" he asked to fill the space that he felt would otherwise have been left empty.

"Both," Kyo admitted, and Haru actually found their shared taste surprising,"but horror scares Tohru and the damn rat just picks on the 'plot malfunctions' of action movies, so I don't get to watch 'em much."

That was probably the most Kyo had willingly said about himself in one go to Haru, and the cow silently rejoiced. He finally had someone he could relate to, maybe he wouldn't just be brushed off all the time if he and Kyo became good friends outside of their daily after-school commitment.

Perhaps he'd finally find someone that could be his best friend, and all it took was an abrupt question of if Kyo wanted to spend some time with him.

.:.

___There were hands on my shoulders, and I knew they were Yuki's, just as I knew the dark shroud of hair that brushed against Kyo's shoulder was the level-headed Hanajima trying to take control of the situation, but among all of us no one really quite understood what had happened and what was now happening._

.:.

Haru slammed the door behind him, toeing off his shoes without unlacing them. The heel bent in on itself before the first shoe released, and the second one came off easier, but not once did Haru take his eyes unseeingly from his own bedroom door down the hall.

He just wanted to go there and sleep, not even hungry.

With a weary sigh, he thought back to what the vice principle had said to him today. He'd told Haru that he was organising counselling sessions for him and his cousins, as well as Tohru, because they were all losing focus on school.

That tended to happen when you realise there's more to life than finishing your algebra homework on time, like how quickly your life could be over.

One second Kyo was attending school like the rest of them, the next, his seat was empty every class. And what had he done with his life? Eighteen years of it, and he'd accomplished nothing.

Haru didn't want to be like that. School just wasn't important – living was.

He decided that even though he wasn't hungry, he hadn't eaten since lunch yesterday, and if he kept it up his stomach would start to curve too far under his ribs. Soon people in the changerooms would notice that he wasn't eating, and he didn't want that. As much as the idea appalled him, he nonchalantly let his schoolback thunk to the floor, turning the corner to head through the living room and into the kitchen.

He stopped, blinking emptily at the three faces staring up at him, two his parents and one the good doctor, Hatori himself.

"Hatsuharu," Hatori said firmly, "come sit down."

Stiffly, Haru forced himself to ignore the command, despite the way his older cousin's eyes compelled him to listen. He walked straight past them, and into the kitchen, leaving the door open behind him so he could hear them.

"I'm hungry," he claimed.

"Food can wait," was his father's stern reply. Haru's face twitched, and he was glad he was facing the other direction.

"Fine, I'm_ starving_," he spoke calmly, before heading straight for the fridge. He dawdled, drawing out his time as much as possible. Nothing he looked at seemed appealing, and everything else was too much effort to prepare as a snack. He found an opened can of spaghetti, and decided that it was better than nothing, even if it was distastefully cold.

He could hear murmuring, but the words themselves carried as nonsensical sounds. The plastic fork scraped the bottom of the can, and there was a weird tomato taste in his mouth, but he still wasn't ready to go out yet. He pressed a hand to his ill-feeling stomach, regretting his decision to eat.

"Haru?" his mother called out, and he knew they'd come looking for him. Ruffling his bangs so they sat better over his face, the ox finally reappeared in the open doorway, sitting down across from his parents, slouching in his seat on the couch away from them, not meeting any of their eyes.

Hatori cleared his throat, "your parents were concerned-"

"-that's a first."

Hatori glanced over at the man and woman, who were staring at their son, completely perplexed, and a little fearful. "Are you afraid of your son?" he asked suddenly.

"Are you kidding?" Haru piped up, clenching his hand until his nails cut into his skin, breaking it. He hadn't clipped them for a while. "They think I'll try and murder them in their sleep. They have to pretend I don't exist just so they can sleep at night."

Hatori looked disappointed. Haru's parents had yet to claim otherwise. "How do you know you couldn't have helped him if you've never tried?" he asked.

Haru laughed bitterly turning to glare at the adults. He waved his hand in his parent's direction, a flash of crimson where his nails had sliced his skin, eyes sharp and dark, Black Haru broken through the cracks.

"Where do you think_ I_ came from?" Black Haru asked, "you were always so scared to deal with me when I was angry, no one ever told me it was normal to feel like this. You just told me to keep it inside, don't let people know I'm angry. You'd avoid me when I started screaming, trying to get your attention, and I just screamed harder, didn't I?"

Hatori was gathering his things, watching the ox with interest, who was speaking strangely calmly for his words.

"You hated me when you saw a calf in your arms instead of a baby boy, didn't you?" he snapped, glaring pointedly at his mother. "You blamed me for not having a normal child. I didn't ask to be born! I hate it here, in this house! If you didn't want me, why didn't you just palm me off on someone and erase your memories, huh?"

"We love you..." his mother said quietly. Haru reached out, grabbed the ornamental vase in the centre of the coffee table, and threw it, flowers and all, across the room. It crashed against the wall, shattering loudly in their ears, both of his parents wincing.

"Liar! You're weak! You're so fucking weak! You make me sick!"

"Hatsuharu!" Hatori rose, leveling the other zodiac with a stare. "You need to calm down."

To the surprise of his parents and Hatori alike, Black Haru seemed to deflate, energy to fight lost with the realization that the doctor was right. "I hate you both."

Hatori stared at him for the longest time, before grabbing his things. "Hatsuharu, go pack some things. You're coming to stay with me for a little while. Until you're back in control and you've stopped mourning Kyo, at least."

"I'll never stop mourning him."

.:.

___If only I'd known, everything wouldn't have crumbled in my hands._

.:.

"So, Carrottop, what'd you get on your report?" Uotani teased as the group made their way toward a cafe after school to celebrate their relief. "How many classes d'ya fail?"

Silently, Kyo slipped one strap of his bag off his shoulder, pulled the backpack to his side, and unzipped the large pocket. He very calmly removed the report and handed it to the blonde girl, no readable expression on his face.

She grinned and snapped it from his hands with gusto, instantly flicking to the first page, noting that he had only half of the unexplained partial absences he'd had last report. She gave him a quick glance and slowed down a little to the back of the group, which continued ahead of her figuring that she'd shout out the results of her find loud enough for the rest of them to hear anyway. Kyo, however, slowed along with her.

She dumbly glued her wide eyes to the first class results – she was staring at a_ B+_.

Similarly, the next five classes were similar, with two_ A-_'s, then another _B+_, an_ A_, and finally an _A+_. She went to speak, and Kyo roughly took the report back from the girl, who just blinked at him.

"Satisfied? Good, now shut your trap about it. Keep something to your damn self for once," he remarked, shoving the report surprisingly carefully back into his bag, zipping it back up as he briskened up his pace. Haru had turned to watch the exchange, a small furrow in his usually blank brow.

_What was on Kyo's report? Was it bad?_

At the cafe, piled so tight into the booth that the four boys and three girls were packed shoulder-to-shoulder, Kyo sat by the window between Momiji and Haru, who in turn was between the cat and the rat. Opposite them, the three girls sat mirroring the boys.

Uotani was staring silently at Kyo, who in turn was sipping at his coffee and staring out the window at the street. It semeed Haru wasn't the only one curious about the results of Kyo's report, and why they had the yankee so silent.

"Cat," Yuki began from beside Haru, leaning against the table in hopes of locking eyes with Kyo. The thoughtful boy turned, meeting the amethyst gaze out of habit. "You're strangely tame this afternoon. Your report couldn't have been that bad; even you aren't_ that_ stupid."

Uo's brow raised that the Prince's words, which Haru noted with slight confusion. Yuki always called Kyo stupid, and never once has the girl done anything aside from laugh along with him. Now she just looked unsure.

Kyo just shrugged. "No, it wasn't too bad," he replied, which left Uo giving him a funny stare, and Haru glancing between the two of them, even as Kyo turned away again, completely disinterested in his company.

Hatsuharu and Yuki shared a look.

.:.

_Uotani's pale hands trembled as they came to press against his brow, and a snarl rose to my throat, ready to tell her not to touch him, but when I saw her blanched, damp face, and her trembling chin, I could see the hysterics that were about to break free from the girl, and I knew they'd probably match my own._

.:.

Usually he wasn't embarrassed about his room, but Hatsuharu could only stumble out some apology about the mess when he saw Kyo crinkle his nose at the pile of sheets that had toppled to the floor, and the stacks of books and papers that lay all over the place. Kyo had never been in his room before, after all, and he knew the cat was fairly set on keeping his own room immaculate.

"Don't worry about it," he said to Haru's awkward apology, "your room just reminds me of the Rat's."

Haru raised a brow. "You go into Yuki's room?"

Kyo frowned. "Well we do live in the same bloody house. Sometimes I have to in there for stuff."

Haru grinned, trying to mask his unwavered surprise. "Oh really," he taunted, "what kind of stuff?"

"You're a real bastard sometimes, you know that?" he muttered at the sly grin he saw crooking the corners of the cow's usually straight mouth. The ox noticed he'd been smiling around Kyo a lot, but he never realised Kyo noticed as well. He was a little shocked when the cat returned the smile very slightly.

"So...movies?" Haru asked, noticing that Kyo had turned away to stare at the glinting pile of marbles strewn across the floor in the corner of the room. The more Kyo scrutinized his personal space, the more nervous he felt about it.

"Yeah, sound's good," Kyo replied, "I just gotta make a call to tell 'em where I am so that damn girl doesn't send a search party out after me," he said in explanation, heading back to the door. "Phone's on the right, yeah?"

"Uh-huh," Haru nodded, quickly milling through his things to tidy up, silently stressing in his hope that there was nothing too personal and embarrassing lying around, like a drawing or a poem or something.

When Kyo returned, he was muttering to himself.

"Who answered?" he asked, guessing the answer correctly.

"Fucking Yuki," he spat viciously. "He's such a prick."

It didn't matter how many times he'd heard the Cat swear like that, it still took him by surprise every time, seeing as Kyo usually watched his language. It reminded him of himself when his Black side came out. "You know," he started meekly, not even sure where he was going with this, "If you weren't so easy to work up, he wouldn't set out to piss you off."

"Ha! So he does try and make me mad!" Kyo shouted triumphantly, as though it were a big deal, and perhaps to him it was. People probably don't believe him when he says Yuki provokes him, but Haru had seen, particularly lately, that the cat wasn't lying about that – Yuki knew how to get under Kyo's skin with just a couple of syllables. Nonetheless...

"He's not a bad person, Kyo," Haru said sternly. He'd meant to finish with the words 'he just hates being ignored, and making you angry is the only way you'd have anything to do with him', but he must have paused for too long while taking in Kyo's flattened expression.

"Why do you like him so much, anyways?" the cat asked, and Haru knew it was spoken out of jealousy. Why, he had no idea, but he wasn't about to pull Kyo up on it and unbalance the friendship he was trying to strengthen.

"Well, he's everything I'm not, I guess." Haru spoke with a shrug, "He's everything that attracts me. He's nice, he's calm, always gentle, and he has so much control over himself. He never says anything he hasn't thought through, and he never gets angry, and people don't brush him off, rather they adore him. He never gets called stupid, he's so intelligent and gifted, and he doesn't fail at anything he does. He's special."

"And you're attracted to that?" Kyo asked, his voice a funny tone of disgust and faltered emotion. "You like that snobbish, tight-assed kind of guy who sticks his nose up at you because he _is_ the best? That puts you down so politely that you can't bring yourself to think he actually means it as cruelly as possible, the kind of person that everyone compares you to, that you know you'll never be no matter how hard you try?" Kyo was getting angry now, and Haru could feel the prickle against the back of his neck he used to feel when they were kids not long after he'd first met Yuki, whenever Kyo talked about him in the complete opposite tone of Haru's own worshipping thoughts.

"You asked me a question and I answered, Kyo. I didn't expect you to judge my honesty," he snapped. Kyo's teeth audibly clacked shut. "You know I loved him, and I only have the highest opinion of him, so why ask something when you know the answer will piss you off? Are you masochistic or something?"

Kyo didn't answer, just pursed his lips together even tighter, like he wanted to say something but didn't know how. Haru didn't give him the chance to figure himself out.

"All the things you see wrong with Yuki, I can see them too, but at least I can turn around and see what's wrong with myself as well. Can _you_ do that? Can _you_ see what he hates about you from _his_ eyes?"

The cat was just staring at him now, one hand awkwardly latched onto his opposite shoulder, blunt nails scratching against his shirt. Haru was white and having a go at him, the same thing that had caused the rift between them when they were kids and went from playing and sparring every day, to suddenly nothing.

"I don't need to look at it through his eyes," he finally whispered, glaring at the marbles again. "I truly don't. Because everything he hates about me,_ I_ already hate about _myself_. I think I hate myself more than he hates me."

If there ever was a time Haru could point to when he actually hated that he had ever loved Yuki, this moment was it, seeing Kyo stood there like that, completely dejected. He winced at the harsh, self-depreciating words that followed.

"I absolutely_ detest myself_."

The older boy clenched a fist beside his leg, and Haru wanted to take a step forward and just wrap his arms around the cat. Never had he wanted to hold Kyo before, but right now, that was all he wanted to do. Yet he couldn't bring his feet to move.

"There is so much I hate about Yuki, but the thing I hate most about him is that I wish I_ were_ him, have since we were kids. And just, hearing you talk about him like that... I wonder why he isn't here planning on watching movies with you instead of me. Why isn't he here with you, trying to be your friend, instead of me."

Haru's lips were dry, and he ran his tongue across them, the movement catching Kyo's sights. Garnet eyes stared at his lips, now damp with his saliva, and it took all of several seconds of rapt attention before the cat scowled, turning away and running a hand through his hair.

"God, I make myself sick," he muttered, obviously to himself, but Haru caught the words anyway. He finally forced his foot off the ground, his leg feeling almost mechanical as he made that step closer. Kyo noticed, and backed away quickly, turning around and picking up the school bag he'd dumped on the floor. "I'm going home. This hasn't been a good start. Maybe some other time."

Haru didn't say anything as Kyo left, but he really desperately wanted to. All he could do was hope Kyo meant his parting words, throw himself on his bed, and think.

.:.

_I allowed Hana to manoeuvre him out of my arms and back onto the cold concrete, telling me others needed to hold him, and I watched in some sort of eerie detachment as Yuki almost immediately doubled over the body, brow pressed to an icy cold one, shoulders shaking as he forced himself to remain silent, not wanting anyone to see the rat crying for the cat._

.:.

The discovery was made in the form of a pale grey envelope that fell in his lap one afternoon.

He took Kyo's notebook with him everywhere, usually hidden, but when he was on his own it was on his lap or in his hands. It had become an attachment to him, and though a few people had noticed whose it was, fewer had the nerve to ask him about it the way Yuki had.

He'd skipped his final class, something that wasn't too unusual for him, and had found himself on the roof of the school, where he'd lasted out the home bell, and was now searching for the motivation to move. Ever since Tohru had tearfully told him Kyo always came to the roof when he wanted to be alone, he'd found it harder to leave every time he came here.

He had the notebook in his lap, staring at the cover, running his hand over it as though somehow it was Kyo he was touching through his attentions. It was pure chance he grabbed it by the binding to lift it to his eyes, planning on shielding the sun with it as he set his sights on a familiar lone person, who was walking down near the back oval, as though searching for something.

In trying to get a better look at Yuki, he felt the tiny patter as the envelop landed on his thigh, staring down at the silvery paper rectangle. In a strangely neat version of Kyo's scrawl, readable yet still obviously Kyo's, he saw 'Hatsu' written just off-centre.

_Kyo must have wedged it between the pages_, he thought, forgetting all about his other cousin in the distance who had disappeared from sight. He lowered the book bag onto his lap, exchanging it for the envelope. With careful fingers he eased it open, wincing when he tore the delicate paper even the slightest amount.

He was about to pull it open when an impossible thought hit him – had Kyo known?

He began to read the letter, sighing a little at the words.

_Hatsu,_

_You already know I feel something for you, just as I know __you feel something  
__for me. You just feel more for him. __I'm writing you this letter because I don't  
know how else __to tell you, but I shouldn't have to explain myself. __Nobody  
should have to explain themselves or how they __feel. That's why I never asked  
you to explain why it __was you could love Yuki but not me. I don't want you to  
__be with me if you're thinking about him, so I'm going to __let you go._

_I'm not exactly being as poetic as I wanted, and this is __kinda awkward even  
__for me to write, but then I guess __that's just one of the things about me that  
makes me too __different from him. I wish I could put my feelings into __long,  
flowy sentences, and tell you how much I love __you with a thousand metaphors  
and similes, but I can't __do that._

_This is as far as my hand will let me go with this. _

_I love you. And I'm telling you that you deserve him._

_You're my best friend, Hatsu. I want you to forget __everything beyond that,  
because if I can't at least __keep the one true friend I've made in my life, if he  
__takes you away from me again, I'll never forgive __either of you. _

_As my best friend,I want you to do me a favour. __You'll never see me again.  
I made sure I sent this __the day before I graduate. I'll get locked away in __the  
cat's cage before you read this. I have left my __notebook with you._

_I want you to read it. And once you read it, I want __you to give it to Shigure.  
__The __last page is written for __him, and I don't want you to look at it. It's not  
any of __your __business, just make sure he reads it before he __reads anything else._

_As my best friend, protect my notebook. Don't let __anybody but you or him look  
__at it. __Don't let Yuki take you away from me, just do this __last thing for me. And if  
you __want to write me, give __the letters to Master. He knows where I am. Maybe  
__you __just might get a letter back._

_Don't come looking for me. Don't pity me. You take __your emotions and you hold  
onto them. __Everything else I want to say to you is in the book._

_Just remember that I love you, and damn if that isn't __awkward to even write,  
but I do. I trust you._

_-Kyo_

Haru just stared at the paper in his hands, idly listening to the dull throbbing in his chest. If he glanced down, he knew he'd be able to see the loose collar of his shirt vibrating with his heartbeat. His eyes were scanning over each word again, trying to see if he'd missed something.

"I sort of knew you'd be up here," Yuki's breathy voice was behind him, and Haru flinched, unaware that his cousin had even found him. "I just hoped you weren't."

Quickly folding the letter neatly along the creases that had already been marked, sliding it into the envelope again, he slipped it into his back pocket as he rose, lifting the notebook with him. Yuki was standing behind him, staring at the notebook in his hand wistfully.

Finally, he met Haru's gaze. "What were you doing?"

"Reading."

Yuki's eyes darkened for a moment before the boy obviously recalled the letter he'd seen put into his back pocket. "Who was it from?" he asked.

Haru wondered if the rat had always been so nosey. "Kyo," he replied sharply.

Yuki didn't speak for as long as it took him to recover, which was half a minute. "Shigure asked me to invite you to dinner tomorrow," was all he said when he finally overcame the silence. He then simply turned and walked away, to which Haru wondered if perhaps he should be kinder to Yuki.

It was hard to be kind to someone you blamed as much as yourself.

.:.

_It was a cruel act of fate that it started to rain, washing away the red stain from his pale cheeks, and I watched as the blood was carried away on water mixed with tears._

_.:._

"Where were you?" Haru asked, his voice smaller than their cousins had heard him before. Kyo tensed, turning away from his argument with Yuki by their shoe lockers, still flushed in the cheeks from his heated discussion about their next lab project.

Yuki was giving him an expressionless look, leaning back against the wall beside the lockers in preparation to watch where this would go. After all, yesterday Haru had gone Black and kissed Kyo.

"Whaddaya mean?"

"I thought you said we were cool."

"Damn cow, what the hell are you on about?"

"You weren't there."

Kyo's gaze widened, and suddenly he gave Haru a very soft look. "I'm sorry," he said, and it was so sincere that Haru actually forgot what he was so upset and angry about. Kyo didn't owe him or anything.

He smiled, softly so as to hopefully convey his feelings about this. "Don't worry 'bout it. I was just worried that we weren't alright, is all."

"No, we're good."

Yuki was watching their strangely muted exchange with a delicate frown, arms crossed over his chest.

"Oh, Hatsuharu!" Tohru exclaimed, sidling up energetically beside Yuki. Kyo turned around to look at her. "Shigure has those notes for you, if you want you can come for dinner and he can go through them with you."

"What notes?" Yuki asked.

"I have to write a story, and it's due in a month," he replied honestly.

"Oh, is that what it's for," Tohru asked. "What is your story going to be about?"

"Well it has to be about someone we know," Haru replied evasively. Kyo looked at him.

"What kind of person?" she asked, not quite taking the hint that Haru didn't want to talk about it.

"Just someone."

"Oh."

They all jumped at the loud clang as Kyo punched the small locker closest to him, storming off. Normally it would be expected, but for just over a week, Kyo had been calm and quite hard to anger. Even his disagreements with Yuki required several times the effort for the rat to anger the cat sufficiently enough to end in blood.

Perhaps trying to keep reserved was harder said than done for him.

They watched Kyo rigidly stalk out of their line of sight before anyone spoke again.

.:.

_He was so cold, and even as I clasped one of his limp hands between my own, I found myself rubbing at them, trying to warm him up, thinking that to be that cold was painful for him._

.:.

Haru woke up, groggily rubbing at his eyes, hearing muttering and stumbled clanking somewhere behind him. As he lifted himself off Shigure's couch, he caught sight of Yuki glaring wholeheartedly at the wall he'd just stumbled into, lazy and tired eyes making him look all the more vicious.

"Yuki..." he mumbled, not quite sure if he was happy to see the rat's face or not. He searched himself, but couldn't find the enthusiasm at seeing his cousin at all.

"Haru," the silver-haired boy greeted, stifling a yawn and walking very zombie-like toward the kitchen. Haru dropped back down onto the lounge, closing his dark eyes and trying to find the last tethers of sleep, to see if he could bring himself back to it.

However, now that he'd been woken up by his clumsy, sleepy fellow Zodiac, his ears started picking up all kinds of sounds. There was a faint beeping from a washing machine, a door upstairs opening, Yuki's stumbling and muttering continuing from the kitchen, the rustling breeze outside.

Soon he started hearing warbling birds, the lid of the washing machine as it was lifted, Yuki opening the fridge, and footsteps on gravel. Whoever it was had been running, and Haru knew instantly that it was Kyo.

Strangely, if it was Kyo, the older boy hadn't woken him up when he'd come downstairs, either much more considerate or much more graceful than the rat.

He sat up this time, swinging his legs over the edge of the seat so he couldn't give in to the urge to just slump over again. The door was slid open, and Kyo came inside, dropping off his running shoes on the verandah before entering fully, breathing heavily and pressing two fingers to his neck.

Haru watched as the boy timed his pulse for nearly a whole minute, until Yuki came back out of the kitchen.

"Cat, stop leaving your shirts around the place," the other boy said, tossing a lump of fabric that was obviously said cat's shirt straight into said teen's face. The redhead scowled, aggressively tossing the garment onto the ground.

"Dammit, rat, couldn't that have waited another ten fucking seconds? I was almost done! You always do that to me!" Kyo shouted, "when I'm doing something, stop fucking interrupting me!" he didn't even care for his excessive swearing, it seemed, storming back outside and slamming the door behind him.

Haru caught the barest of satisfied smirks on Yuki's face before he returned to the kitchen.

"Yuki," Shigure called from his office, "tell Kyo to wash his mouth out with soap! He's upsetting poor Tohru!"

"Ahh!" Tohru called from upstairs, "nonono, it's fine! It doesn't bother me!"

"Nonsense, Miss Honda," Yuki's voice reached him from the kitchen, "the Cat has a foul tongue and should learn how to speak around a lady!"

"What would you know about my tongue, fucking rat!" Kyo yelled from outside.

Haru sat on the lounge, bemusedly listening to the conversation that went on around him from all angles, above and around so it seemed, and silently wondered about the lack of privacy due to paper walls, somehow ending up musing to himself in debate of whether or not Kyo would be any good at dirty-talk.

It occurred to him in that moment that maybe Kyo was right about one thing concerning Yuki. That perhaps Yuki got away with insulting Kyo because he did it so connivingly that he made it seem like he was doing it nicely. Kyo was just that used to being put down, always suspicious of people, that he jumped at the slightest insult.

When Kyo finally did come inside, Haru slouched against the lounge waiting for him, the Cat sat silently in the remaining space, starched comforter inflating beneath him, and stared. Finally, Kyo rested his elbows on his knees, leaning forward and burrying his head in his hands.

Haru just set a hand in the centre his back, not quite sure how else to go about comforting his usually fiery cousin.

.:.

_I refused to meet anyone's eyes, not even Yuki's._

.:.

"What were you to him?" Yuki asked honestly a few weeks after it had happened, staring at the notebook that was resting on the ox's knees. He lifted his eyes to look at Haru's drawn face. "What was he to you?"

It had been a conversation Haru had been avoiding, because he knew Yuki would want answers he wasn't even sure of himself.

They were out with Tohru doing some groceries, having accidentally met up with Haru halfway, but the flustered girl had told them she'd meet them at the park, because her monthlies had hit her out of nowhere and she needed some privacy.

It was embarrassing for her, actually, because Yuki had been the one to notice she was bleeding, and then she'd had a fit, accidentally telling both boys things they didn't need to know about her not having anything in her bag prepared and it how was a week late because she'd been stressing. She'd had to rush away to buy whatever sanitary products she used, and then find a public restroom, and her face had been so red that they were both worried she'd pass out in shame.

They'd found a quiet place to sit, a stretch of field where Haru sprawled out across the grass, Yuki sitting stiffly beside him. The rat was biting at his lip, something he'd been doing basically since Haru had said it was okay to do.

Once, seeing Yuki biting his lips would have been appealing, but now it was just a normal thing that normal people did.

"I guess I was a lot to him," Haru said quietly, hoping Yuki didn't make him think about this any further today. "And he meant a lot to me, too."

"Then why'd you throw it all away?"

He didn't answer Yuki, refusing to get in a debate about how it was the rat's fault anyway, glancing over when they noticed Tohru approaching them. She was wearing a different, newly bought skirt, and a paper bag was in her hands no doubt with her other one in it.

She was red enough to pass out any moment, it seemed. Haru decided that periods were nothing to be embarrassed about, and therefore said nothing to console the girl, whom Yuki then fussed over reassuring that it was quite alright.

Kyo never got embarrassed over things like that, convinced that people should like him for how he was and nothing less, and if they were going to try and shame him for something he couldn't control, he didn't bother wasting his time on that person.

Haru gripped the book hard.

.:.

_I don't know exactly it was when I went Black, but I know it wasn't for long and only Momiji noticed, who then wrapped his arms so tight around me that I didn't even notice the rabbit had hardly made a sound at all since._

.:.

* * *

**A/N:** First off, I understand there may be some confusion as to the actual timeline of the plot, but don't worry, you shouldn't miss anything important without it written in proper order. I'm writing the scenes like this on purpose, releasing little bits of information as you need them.  
Secondly, the pairings in this story are as follows:  
Main, and only true pairing, **HaruxKyo**. Mentions of one-sided Yuki/Kyo, and a little past Kyo/Yuki confusion. Past cannon one-sided Haru/Yuki. Slight YukixHaru confusion. Briefly mentioned one-sided Kyo/Tohru. This story is in support of KyoxHaru, all other pairings are simply part of the plot. Just in case any of that needed clearing up.

I've been stuck on finishing this story for a few days, and I intend to complete my writing it before I return to my other projects. It was written on a whim, inspired by a very brief, and poorly written oneshot. I know that most stories are incomplete on this site, but this one will not be like that, as I have almost finished it completely. I wanted to wait before posting something, but I caved a day or two early.

I don't know how many parts to this there is, but I've almost finished writing it, I just have to write a couple more scenes. That will be probably another three or four parts?_  
_

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the story.

**Love, MK.**


	2. II: Tears Dry Up

**Unspoken**

_Part II  
Tears Dry Up_

.:.

_Perhaps it was shock that bled my tears dry that night, because they still haven't finished flowing._

_.:._

Haru casually tossed his body onto Kyo's bed, waiting for the Cat to come out of the bathroom. After the 'pass the salt' incident with Yuki, Haru was entirely certain that there was something wrong. Kyo was being_ nice_. People who knew Kyo, knew that Kyo was almost _never_ nice, especially toward _Yuki._

Kyo looked a little surprised to see him there when he came into his room, as if they weren't practically best friends and the ox didn't just make himself at home all the time. "Haru," was the curt, if not a little distracted greeting. "Everything alright?"

"Mm-hm."

Haru was a little distracted by the fact Kyo was still damp, a towel around his waist. The cat noticed that Haru was staring at his chest, and just shook his head, making for the cupboard. Using one hand to hold up his towel, the other rifling through his clothes, one side of the towel slipped until it stooped lower than the other. For some reason, seeing that bit of skin that wasn't exactly foreign to him had Haru's darker, lustier tendencies surfacing.

He held his Black thoughts down, trying to focus on the back of Kyo's head.

When Kyo dropped the towel without a care, Haru stopped breathing.

It's not like he wanted anything from Kyo, but his cousin _was_ hot, and Haru did swing that way, both in the homosexual and the incestual sense. _And I'm a teenager,_ he thought,_ really, that's the only excuse I need._

Sometimes all he thought of was sex, so it was nothing new when the idea of it came to his head upon looking at Kyo naked. It wasn't a new sight either, he'd seen the cat without clothes several times, either in dressing or transforming in front of one another. The Sohma Zodiac had little shame about their bodies.

But it was the fact Kyo was wet that somehow made all the difference.

Kyo stilled for a second but then resumed searching for clothes when he heard Haru get up from where he'd been lain across the cat's bed. Haru had only stood, not moving to take any steps closer, but when Kyo turned around, the younger boy couldn't help his eyes straying to certain body parts that usually would have been covered desperately if it were anyone else facing him.

The first thing to attract his eyes was the auburn pubic hair, as it would anyone, because seeing orange hair would never stop catching his eye, no matter how often he spent time with his cousin the cat. The second thing to come to his notice was that Kyo was half-hard, and obviously unbothered about the fact Haru could see that.

Kyo had a shirt in his hand when he finally straightened his posture, noticing where his younger cousin was staring. Rather than covering up, he crossed his arms, eyes narrowed.

"What," he snapped. Haru looked up at him finally, a little bit of pink tingeing his cheeks for being caught staring at what he'd been staring at. He tried to look away from Kyo, give him some privacy, but he just couldn't, not if Kyo would keep staring at him like that. Those eyes always found a way to lock him in place.

"Uhm..."he settled with instead, feeling suddenly very awkward. _Why's Kyo a little hard, anyway?_

Kyo huffed a breath through his nose, a sound in his throat suspiciously like a laugh. "Don't even start," the other boy said, as though reading the ox's mind, "your pants aren't exactly as loose as they were a minute ago, either."

Having Kyo draw attention to what should have been his own concealed erection would have brought a flush to Haru's cheeks if he were anyone else. But he wasn't embarrassed either, just a little awkward being in this position with Kyo of all people.

"Why-" Haru began, wanting to ask about it, but Kyo cut him off.

"What are you doing here, Hatsu."

Haru's immediate reply was simply to blink calmly at his cousin. That was the first time Kyo had ever called him that.

"Aren't you going to get dressed?" he eventually asked in reply, and Kyo just cocked his head to the side a little, a tiny smirk on his lips.

"Is it bothering you?"

Haru pursed his lips, deciding on honestly. "A little."

"Deal with it. It's my room."

It had been almost four months since Kyo had first been in Haru's room. That was a fair few months since they'd worked through their discussion about Yuki, and Kyo's admission to hating himself. Apparently Kyo hated absolutely everything about himself, but somehow Haru couldn't see a single thing about Kyo, right now, that should be hated. Not unless it was hated simply because it was envied.

Since then, Kyo had been quiet, and relatively level-headed about smaller things that used to piss him off. He started less fights with Yuki, or at least verbal ones anyway, seeing as their brawls had cut down substantially with time since the cat first moved in. In fact, Yuki seemed a little confused about the lack of arguments at first, and had provoked a couple of fights himself that Haru had seen. Especially this past week.

Haru had been in Kyo's room since that day four months ago; many times in fact, and Kyo had been in his. They talked more about themselves in that time, and he knew some things now that he never really knew about the cat before, some things he'd have never guessed at all. Right now, this Kyo seemed to be completely different to the one he'd grown used to.

"What's up with you?"

Kyo just sighed, pulling his shirt over his head, before stepping into a pair of gym shorts, and making his way over to the large bookshelf in his room, glancing at the extensive collection of books. Sometimes Haru came in here and wondered just how it was possible that someone like Kyo could be worse off accedemically than someone who hated reading, like Yuki.

"Here," Kyo said, pushing a navy blue folder into Haru's chest. The folder was familiar; it bore the school crest, and Kyo's full name in gold leaf. It was the cat's report folder. Kyo sat on the edge of his bed.

Suddenly greatly interested, seeing as Kyo hadn't told anyone and Uotani refused to say anything about what she knew, Haru accepted the report folder and opened it up, flicking through the pages with keen interest.

By the time he'd read through it, Kyo had lain down, bare feet still on the floor, arms above his head, eyes half-lidded. Haru felt a flare of nerves stirring in his groin at the position, seeing long stretches of skin along the cat's arms, thighs, and his exposed naval, but ignored the twisting feelings. He looked back down and read through it a second time.

"No, it's not forged," Kyo piped up, hearing Haru go back to check a third time.

Haru, before he could say anything, looked over at the door a second before it was slid open, Yuki stood in the opening. He had a text book and was glaring at it – biology. He seemed startled to see Haru upstairs.

"Uhh...isn't Shigure waiting for you?" he'd said, frowning a little between his two cousins, turning his gaze from Haru to Kyo. Something darkened in those eyes when they set on the Cat, who stared down the length of his chest at Yuki, silent.

"I guess so," Haru relented, placing the report folder on Kyo's desk. He passed Yuki, leaving without a word, surprised when the door closed behind him. He stared at it, having fully expected Yuki to have still been stood out in the hallway.

_Apparently they really do go into one another's rooms when they need something_, he mused, heading downstairs, remembering the look of fury on Yuki's face as he glared at the book in his hands, obviously forced to go to his lab partner for help.

He was halfway down the stairs before it hit him – _Kyo's marks...they were..._

_Since when does Kyo get an 'A' in anything but phys-ed?_

.:.

_I never cry, but looking down at him as others tenderly touched him, trying to ground themselves to the truth, I couldn't seem to stop the tears. _

_.:._

Hatsuharu couldn't bring himself to put the notebook down. He read it all afternoon, from the moment he got home, until he looked at the clock and realized that somehow time had escaped him and he'd have barely three hours sleep until he had to get up and go to school. Then it occurred to him that it was the weekend, and he could stay up as long as he wanted.

His parents had come home and gone to bed in that time, without even checking on him. He only ever really got the chance to see them on the weekends, as they were gone before they were awake and returned after he'd gone to bed, and by then he could never drag up the effort to go see how they were.

Not like they returned the favour.

No doubt he could die in his bed and they wouldn't know for weeks.

He'd see them on weekends for an hour or so at the most, but he'd long lost interest in doing things with them, and had known for years he hardly cared for either of his parents, who were too scared of his Black personality to even approach him when he was home at the same time as they were.

No, for a long time he used to go out with Momiji, or all their friends, and in the recent months he'd been attatched almost surgically to Kyo, but not anymore...

Today, he just shut himself up all day to finish reading this notebook.

He finished it just before lunch, and cried himself into a deep, exhausted sleep, which he didn't wake up from until the phone rang and a curious Shigure was on the other line, asking for him.

He remembered that he'd been invited to dinner by Yuki, and sighed, already up before his mother's timid knock even touched the wood of his door.

He had a promise to keep.

.:.

_The rain fell, the blood and tears were washed away, and before I'd even noticed it had happened, my shoulders were wrapped in a thick blanket, and I was being lead away from him by someone familiar who had just arrived._

_.:._

"How the hell'd your marks shoot up like that?" Haru asked, earning him a funny look as the redhead stuffed a handful of chicken chips in his mouth. It was almost amusing how normal the cat acted when he was comfortable with someone.

It had been a couple of days, and Haru had avoided asking, but Kyo was staying the night at his. The question had been doing loops in his head, especially when everything went back to normal the next day at school and Kyo was back in detention for a few days after calling some Yuki Fanclub girl a 'desperate little whore' in front the whole class. Which, of course, would have been fine if the teacher hadn't been included in the audience.

The strange thing was that Yuki had, apparently, very sincerely congratulated Kyo when he came home after detention that first day.

Haru, surprised and glad to see Kyo back in detention with him, had eagerly listened to the cat's every word of his amusing retelling of the event, including in the bits he hadn't already heard, like how he'd knocked over his desk and full-on ranted at the girl, who had been up in Yuki's face pleading with him to ask her on a date.

Somewhere between Kyo telling him about how he'd chewed her out for being an obsessive slut trying to usurp Tohru, and laughingly confessing that the teacher had been a little scary when she went purple like that while screaming at him, Haru had decided he wanted Kyo to stay over that weekend.

It had been a very random, concise thought, and he wondered once if it was his Blacker conscience coming out, but he'd simply mused _'he should stay over on friday'_ and that had been that.

He waited until the next day to ask, though.

Kyo had agreed with the same attitude he'd had when Haru first asked him to hang out after detention, a carefree reply that no longer masked his enthusiasm to someone who could read him the way Haru now could.

All afternoon Haru had been bursting at the seams to ask Kyo exactly what it was that put his marks through the roof. And now that he had, Kyo just shrugged, like it wasn't really a big deal of a question, and Haru felt a little silly for drawing his curiosity out for so long.

"It was you, actually," was the reply, once Kyo had finally swallowed his mouthful of chips, taking a sip of his soda.

"Me? How?"

Kyo shrugged again, and observed their spread. They were on Haru's bed, the television in his room set on some re-run of a show they both didn't mind, so that they could talk and have some background noise, seeing as Haru's parents came home early.

If Haru ever had hopes of his parents coming to check on him before they went to bed, it was basically shot to hell now that he had the cat over. Not that his parents hated the cat, they actually didn't mind having Kyo over when they were little kids, but they'd been told that Kyo grew up a lot like their own son, or at least the half they feared – angry, brash, violent, foul-mouthed, intollerable, troublemaking, and a delinquent.

There were no speaches to be found about how they were glad their boy had made a friend that would be a good influence on him.

After asking their son passingly a couple of months ago how he and Kyo became friends, seeing as Kyo was a year older than he was and they didn't go to the dojo on the same days, Haru had simply muttered detention and that had been the end of their week's worth of parental conversation.

But nonetheless, his parents found the time to gossip between working and avoiding their son, so he'd turned on the television to something that neither really wanted to watch but wouldn't protest to, and made a trip to the kitchen so they wouldn't have to again. The din in the background wasn't just for making it hard for his parents to hear them, but also to fill the gaps of silence that seemed a lot less natural.

Now it wasn't so much that they didn't know what to say to each other, but more that they didn't need to talk to enjoy the company.

On his bed, packets of chips, sweets, biscuts, and a few bottles of soda that had fogged with condensation, lay strewn, some half empty and some not even opened yet. Haru had one of the two phones in his room, so they could order proper food whenever the unhealthy arsenal ran out.

Finally, after eyeing off his opened packet of chips and an unopened packet of plain boiled lollies, Kyo settled on the lollies, and popped one in his mouth after a stubborn minute of struggling with the bag. Kyo always had trouble, and usually gave up to rip it open with his overdeveloped canine teeth.

"Kyo?" he prompted. Kyo, remembering the question, fidgetted a little awkwardly on the bed.

"You were telling me everything you liked about Yuki...and I realized I was none of those things. I decided to change that, so that maybe you'd have more to like about me than just the fact I can relate to you, but that's just the problem. You like Yuki because he's everything you're not, but me and you...we're so alike, in so many ways. I guess I was kinda being a bit of a girl about it."

"Wait..." Haru mumbled, "I don't like Yuki more than I like you, Kyo."

"No, you love Yuki. That's different," Kyo replied, staring dejectedly at the packet of sweets before placing them back on the bed, returning to his chips. He ate much slower, more out of the fact he had something in his hands than the actual want to eat. The redhead placed his fingertips against his lip, tongue darting out to lick the salt off his skin.

Haru remembered back to when he went Black and kissed Kyo, for no real reason other than to piss someone off, and that those lips had attracted his attention, as they were doing now. Thankfully his White side had more control. He looked back to the other evening, when he'd seen Kyo naked, and how he'd gotten hard. His Black side had screamed at him to do something, that Kyo was offering, that the cat wanted it because he was just standing there and not getting dressed even when he saw what his cousin was looking at.

Haru wondered if his Black thoughts were right, but shut them down quickly.

"I love you too, Kyo," Haru said quietly. Kyo's eyes shot to him too fast. "I love all my cousins."

Kyo's unsure smile was weak, as though he didn't really want to hear that.

"I don't," he replied, "I care for some of em, but I don't really love them."

"Who do you love, then? Of the Zodiac, at least," he asked, but the strange look on Kyo's face told him that he wasn't sure how to answer the question. "Surely there's some you love even a little."

"Kisa," Kyo said firstly, a fond look suddenly on his face, "but I think she believes I don't like her very much."

"I can see where she'd get that idea," Haru said quietly, a little down that Kyo hadn't said his name. "I mean, you are always in a shitty mood when she's over. She probably thinks it's personal."

"It _is_ personal, with her little boyfriend. Hiro pisses me off worse than Yuki."

"Hm."

Kyo waited to see if there was any more before he continued. "Shigure, I guess...I mean, he took me in, and sure he pisses me off, and I don't trust him, but he's always there, you know?" he waited a moment, then continued. "I worry about Ritsu, and Momiji's a pain but I understand him a little more than he thinks."

Haru was looking up at Kyo again, silently hoping there was more.

"This his hard...well, as crazy as this is gonna sound, I'm even kinda fond of Yuki. Don't ask, I don't even know, but if someone really wanted to hurt him, I'd kill 'em." Kyo said quietly, finally flushing a little at the admission.

Haru blinked owlishly – _that must have taken some courage_, he admitted.

"I guess I kinda hope that we can end on good terms, you know? That's just one reason why I hope I can beat him one day. I'll have no reason to fight him."

"I hope he returns the feeling," Haru said quietly, eyes flickering between both of the cat's, still staring Kyo like his cousin had grown a second head. The last thing he expected was for _Yuki_ to be on the list.

"Unlikely," Kyo scoffed. He reluctantly met Haru's gaze, then. "And then there's you."

Haru's heart felt extremely light in his chest, able to feel each and every flutter of his heart as it slowly began to race. His mouth felt a little dry, so after swallowing, he forced himself to speak slowly. "What about me?"

Kyo opened his mouth to say something, but a small laugh escaped in front of his words, mouth curving into a grin. "I've asked myself that every damn day. Still don't have a decent answer."

.:.

_I looked over my shoulder, watching people crowding around the space I'd occupied, as though filling up the hole I'd left behind, but nobody was going to fill up the hole I took with me. _

_.:._

"You missed your chance," he said, looking Yuki in the eye. At first, Yuki looked angry, as though thinking Haru wanted to start a fight, tonight of all nights.

They were at the wake, the Sohma family who cared milling around Shigure's house in blacks, some solemn and tearful, others laughing pitifully in dire attempts at cheering one another up. It was only a day ago Yuki had come to him and kissed him, and he'd turned the older boy away.

He wasn't going to be used for comfort, no matter how much Yuki may need it, because he knew he needed it more.

"I know that, cow," Yuki seethed. Beside them, Aayame and Shigure, who had been simply sitting silently together and minding their business, too depressed to even try and act happy, bristled at the tone of the rat's quiet voice.

"No, you don't. Not really," Haru said just as quietly.

Yuki frowned, and the expression looked odd on his almost porcelain face. "Are you trying to hurt me? Is that what this is about?"

Haru sighed. "I think it might be." Yuki's jaw throbbed he was gritting it so hard, yet the boy refused to walk away in his own house. He truly was too proud. Just like Kyo.

"What are you going to say to me next? You gonna tell me it's all my fault? That this wouldn't have happened if I'd just stayed out of your way?"

Haru ran his teeth over his lip, swallowing hard. "No, because that would be pointing out the obvious. I was going to tell you what he said to me once. That is, if you want to hear it."

Yuki looked away from Haru, breathing angrily through his nose. Beside them, Ayame moved to stand, probably to comfort Yuki or send them in opposite directions, but Shigure's hand grabbed him and held him still, forcing him to simply observe. Haru was thankful.

"Tell me," Yuki relented quietly, his obvious desire to know everything that concerned their cat ultimately crumbling him.

"I asked him once, who he loved in this family. I was one, Kisa, Shigure, hell he even said Momiji. But you know what surprised me?" Haru waited until his cousin turned to look at him, investigating the pause. "He said your name, too."

Yuki's face was blank for a few seconds, not sure how to take the ox's words, and Haru waited for the dam to break. Yuki was like a marble statue for the longest moment, until finally his eyes started to well and moisture gathered along his lashes. He tried to hold it in, Haru could see that, and it was obviously painful, but you could only grit your jaw so tight, and even the ice prince could only restrain his tears for so long.

_It must be painful not ever learning how to show what you're feeling._

The first rolled over his cheek, dripping from his chin and disappearing as it fell onto his chest. After that, Yuki's eyes were glassy and wet, his cheeks flushed, and soon the rat had to look down in shame, shoulders shaking and not breathing. Haru was hit with a stab of guilt.

"Yuki, brother," it was Ayame's tentative voice, "are you alright?"

Something snapped as soon as the question had been asked, and Yuki shocked them all by collapsing onto the floor, knees splayed out either side and hands over his face, breathing in harsh, shuddering sobs, ones that shook his delicate frame in what looked to be almost violent convulsions. As soon as Yuki lost control, the room went silent, watching but not approaching as the rat, of all the zodiac creatures, dissolved into tears.

Tohru was the first to break from the startled crowd, diving forward and wrapping her arms around the trembling mess that had become of the prince. There was a moment of startled silence at her action, but soon they relaxed, seeing her tenderly cupping the small grey rat to her wet cheek, crying with him, dampening his fur.

Haru felt his heart stutter, pierced with a cold, lonely pain, and immediately he turned and almost ran from them, thundering up the stairs, finding his way to Kyo's barren room on instinct. Seeing Tohru run to comfort Yuki like that, it reminded him that nobody had held him, or cried with him, and nobody told him it'd be alright. No one.

Slamming the door open, he threw himself into the familiar space, pausing at the centre. His eyes went to the bed, and the tears started sliding away from his control.

He took a few steps closer to the bed, a gentle choke from his throat as he tried to coerce his lungs to breathe easily. He wasn't used to the sensation of crying, so breathing itself seemed almost impossible at that moment. Kyo'd kill him if he died crying because he couldn't breathe, like some sort of sissy.

"Kyo," he gasped, memories flooding him at once. He surrounded himself in them, like some sort of warm blanket. Slamming his eyes shut, he dropped carefully onto the icy bed, crawling along it and collapsing onto his stomach. Burrying his arms under the pillow, turning his face into the fabric, he breathed in the cat's spicey scent as deeply as possible, holding in his breath until his chest hurt more than it already was.

Each second he lie awake, was a second longer he couldn't drag his mind away from all that he'd seen.

Several people came to check on him before nightfall, each time the door opened waking him once more from his dazed sleep, but not once did he open his eyes to let them know he stirred. Finally Hatori came in, gently easing him away from the bed. Haru asked for another minute alone, saying he'd be down shortly, to which the doctor obliged.

He didn't know what to do with himself, just staring around the room like there would be some clue as to why he woke up in it, cold and without arms wrapped around him. He spotted a familiar black notebook on Kyo's desk, placed in the exact place the cat always put it, obviously undisturbed this entire time.

He considered not toucing it, but Yuki's face crossed his mind, and he quickly picked it up, sliding his coat off his shoulders and wrapping the book in it. He held the coat in his arms as though he'd simply grown too hot and had decided to carry it, and left, not looking back at the room as he walked away from it for good.

.:.

_My heart had been racing hard enough earlier to feel it ready to burst forth from my chest, but now it was slow, sluggish, as though it ached to stop beating, pleading with life to release it._

_.:._

They'd known it was a murder from the start. Haru wasn't quite as solemn, a childish sort of hopeful that braved the thought it had simply been an accident and nothing pre-meditated. Even he, with his naivity, knew that there was simply too much blood for it to have been an accident.

Kyo hadn't simply been mugged, the aggression in the wounds his body bore enough to know that whoever had drove the knife into his flesh was doing it with purpose.

After that was decided, they already had a name._ Sohma._

Whoever had done this had to be part of the family, though it was highly unlikely they were from the zodiac. And there were over a hundred people in reachable distance with the last name Sohma.

With the cat no longer a part of the cycle, women who were aware of the curse had been forewarned to take caution with bearing children. The fact they had to caution people made Hatsuharu sick.

The cat would be reborn whether they warned people or not – wouldn't it be better if the woman knew what she was risking?

When Hatsuharu got back from school, intending on asking the doctor a question, he made his way over to Hatori's residence. There, Hatori was tending to a female client, a young woman having her unexplained swollen eye checked. She was aware of the curse, and worked part-time as a maid in Akito's household. Haru had just walked in, overhearing the conversation.

"I'm sure, as you realize, the Cat is no longer with us. I pray you and your husband be careful for the time being."

He'd turned black then, and couldn't remember much else, aside from the woman crying and Hatori, after unsuccessfully trying to calm him, sticking a needle in his arm.

He wasn't angry at her, no, he was mad at Hatori. Could the dragon not even say Kyo's name? Was he simply_ the cat_?

And what was so wrong with giving birth to the cat that made their mothers hate them?

Why did everyone have to hate the cat!

His eyes were opening again, regaining consciousness, strangely enough while still Black. Body too heavy to move properly, he could only stare blearily up at the ceiling, soft yellow from the glow of candlelight. Hatori was already at his side, checking him over, a small torch exploding white in his retinas, when a childhood memory hit him.

He remembered that he, too, had begun to hate the cat for what he was.

_As little boys, when they'd first met, Haru had come to the dojo, still dressed in his outdoor clothes, a brand new gi held to his front, nervous eyes lowered to the floor in respect. A kind young man with grey hair tied at the base of his neck had smiled warmly at him, breaking away from his instructing of another young boy in order to welcome the ox._

_The boy had glared at him angrily for taking Kazuma's attention away from him, but Haru only knew because he could feel the weight of the older boy's stare. It wasn't until he looked up that a shock of orange hit him._

_So this is the cat, Haru had thought, blatantly staring at the other boy._

_"Son, show him where the changing room is," the man had said, turning back to the cat, nudging the glaring boy in the direction of his new pupil. "Be nice, Kyo. You should get acquainted; he'll be your training partner."_

_"I don't need a partner!"_

_"Kyo," the man said, in a way that was both stern and kind. "You are the only young boy I teach. Without someone your own size, I won't be able to show you things you'd need to practice with another person. You want to be the best, don't you?"_

_The cat was jealous, Haru knew that from the start, but only now could he look back and know why. Kyo had been worried that Kazuma would adopt another boy and forget about him, he'd been worried that all the love and affection that someone had finally begun to show him would just vanish._

_But even back then, Haru knew that the jealousy was something he could fix, and set out to impress the other boy._

_At first, Kyo had been mean to him, telling him what he was doing wrong but not how to improve. Slowly, the boy had softened, then taken to smiling at him, and soon, Haru found Kyo waiting at the dojo entrance for him every day he came to train. They started spending time together away from their training, but even that had been a sudden change._

_At first, Kyo had been wary to step outside of the building with the young ox, until Kazuma had quietly told the cat "It doesn't matter, Kyo, let them see", and just like that, Kyo went with him everywhere._

_Sometimes, Kagura or Momiji would be with them, other times Shigure or Hatori were stuck babysitting them, but they were always together, at the dojo and at elementary school, and soon at Haru's house._

_Those whispers about how stupid the ox were had become comments about how stupid the ox-cursed was to befriend the cat. All Haru knew at the time was that he was being called stupid._

_Then, when he met Yuki, everything went downhill. Painfully slowly, he grew to hate the cat for hating the rat. Something that had once been mutual ground for them, eventually drove them apart._

Those strangely raw memories from his childhood faded as Hatori turned off the torch, staring down at him with a displaced look on his features, having watched the small change in Haru's eyes as he reverted back to his White personality.

"Caution is necessary when dealing with the curse of the cat," Hatori said simply to justify himself. Haru didn't think the doctor had ever been more correct.

By now, he'd forgotten his question, and two days later, he was living with the doctor, having already forgiven him.

.:.

_Some people say they can't feel anything through the numbness, and I wish that was the case for me, but it wasn't._

_.:._

It had become routine for them, if you can call it a routine by the second week, for Kyo to stay over his on the friday night, and go home saturday. This time Haru didn't even ask, the cat practically just following him home.

It made Haru happy that Kyo willingly came without being asked. It proved to him that his cousin truly wanted to spend time with him, and it made him all the more fond of the older boy.

His room was too messy to lay out a futon, and with so much clutter it didn't matter if he cleaned up beforehand, because it'd still be cramped and Haru would trip over Kyo during the night. They ended up sharing the bed.

They weren't embarrassed about it the first night. The two of them had been lying there together watching the television by the foot of the bed, and Kyo had fallen asleep right where he was. Haru had simply smiled, covered the cat with a blanket, turned off the television, and crawled in beside him to fall asleep.

This time, they didn't even talk about it, Kyo just shucking off his clothes down to his undershirt and his underwear, and Haru doing the same, before they slid under the covers.

There was no reason for them to be embarrassed, after all. If Kyo could stand naked in front of him without a care, what was wrong with sharing a bed.

_Then why am I so nervous?_ Haru thought, watching as the credits started to roll up the screen at the movie's unsatisfying conclusion. He turned over, about to ask Kyo's opinion on how many negative stars that movie was rated, but his cousin was already watching him, deep garnet-red eyes locking with his own smokey-quartz grey.

Kyo didn't move his gaze away, just continued to stare, and Haru found himself unable to breathe for a few seconds as he watched the way Kyo's eyes traced his face, flickering from feature to feature, as though he'd never seen it before.

He blamed it on how close they were, and how hard it was to pull his eyes away from the other boy's face, and the fact that when he finally sucked in a breath through his nose all he could smell was Kyo's scent. He blamed it on the fact that his Black thoughts were surfacing more and more around the cat.

Hatsuharu slipped a hand out from under the blankets, gently cupping Kyo's face. He glanced at the cat's lips, naturally darker than his own, and returned his glance to those intense red eyes. Kyo had yet to move or say a word. Waiting, curious.

They were fairly close even with all the space on the bed, and when Haru moved he didn't even have to slide forward, just leaning in.

When he pressed his lips to Kyo's and kissed him for the second time, he was White.

Rather than striking him down the way Kyo had done last time, he opened up immediately, grabbing at the hand pressed to his cheek as though to keep it there, sliding himself closer, parting his lips the moment Haru's tongue begged permission.

There was a quiet breath of relief from Kyo as Haru lifted up, leaning over the older boy, gaining a better angle and slanting their mouths, the deep kiss they shared leaving the base of his spine tingling when a warm hand reached around to press encouragingly against it.

Without even a word of confession, Kyo unravelled under Haru's mouth, subtley gesturing with the press of his hands and the rest of his body, moving the younger boy between his legs, wrapping his limbs around the ox.

The wet sounds of their kissing continued even once the credits had finished rolling and the movie stopped, only to be added to as gentle grunts and breathy moans began to substitute breaking apart to breathe, followed by the shuffling of fabric. There were no words, only a slight hitch in Kyo's voice as he cried out softly, Haru finally inside him.

.:.

_I watched as Tohru was being comforted by a crying Uo and a solemn Hana, selfishly screaming in my head that she didn't know pain, that her pain was nothing compared to mine._

_.:._

"Cheer up, carrottop," Uo slurred, the girl who had turned eighteen the week before partially intoxicated. They were out celebrating her belated birthday at a casual restaurant with a lit-up dancefloor and an active bar. She'd had to go to America for her actual birthday, and had just returned two days ago. "Here, have a drink with me!"

Kyo, who was also eighteen, hadn't had a single drop of alcohol. Uo, on the other hand, had left her apartment just short of 'off her face', as she'd called it.

"I don't drink," he mumbled slowly, not in the mood to try and make up an excuse. They had a higher risk of turning into their Zodiac form if they were drunk, either from bodily strain, or from the increased chance of running into girls.

"Spoil sport," she jeered, "you're pussyfooting around it. Just one drink with me, c'mon!"

Kyo gave her a halfhearted glare. The blonde sighed, finally moving from her seat across from him to sit in the chair beside him, throwing her elbows onto the table and staring at the colourful youth.

They were all alone at the reserved table, with Momiji having disappeared to the small dancefloor, dragging Tohru with him. Hana had gone to the bathroom, and had yet to return. Yuki and Haru simply drifted in their own time, unable to stand the forced comarderie.

"Alright, what's up? C'mon, you can tell me."

"It's nothin'."

"Don' lie ta me. It's loverboy, aint it?" she asked loudly in order to be heard over the music that just started up, grinning when he flinched and turned his stare to his lap. Noticing the funny look on his face didn't disappear, she frowned, suddenly turning serious. "Did he do something? You need me to beat him up for you?"

"I've kicked his ass plenty of times. If he needed it kicked, I'd do it myself."

She just stared, blue eyes boring through him. "Then why haven't you?" He just shrugged. "Well what's he done? I know you two did it weeks ago; he's not getting cold feet after finding out he popped your cherry or anything, is he?"

"He just found someone better," Kyo replied flatly, the girl having to lean closer to hear him.

She burst out in drunken, raucus laughter. "Who in the hell's better for him than you?" she asked, shaking her head.

"Someone he's been in love with for years," Kyo mumbled. She coughed, choking on either oxygen or saliva in her shock, neither one less embarrassing than the other.

"Don't tell me..."

"Yeah...him."

She frowned, biting her lip a little as she considered the completely put-out look on her friend's face. "You're not getting the wrong idea about it, are you?"

"Well, first I saw them with their tongues down each other's throats ten minutes after me and him..." he trailed off, before finding his way again, "then I overheard him saying, rather forcefully, that he just used me."

She actually gasped, causing him to lift his brow at her. "He had no idea, did he?"

"What?"

"You know what," she said quietly, glancing around as though he might hear. He could have been stood right beside their table and not heard with all the noise, but she was too tispy to quite notice that. "You never told him, did you?"

"I wanted to...that night, actually. Of all nights to plan something like that, yeah?"

The laugh that followed his words was heartbroken. He turned his eyes to the bar, where Hatsuharu was drinking, surprisingly by himself. At the other end of the bar, Tohru was looking completely out of place, having escaped the rabbit's clutches, with Yuki right beside her, a hand on her shoulder as he spoke to her.

She, Haru and Momiji, were the only ones who weren't eighteen, and she was positive that she'd be kicked out and have to go home on her own. It didn't matter how many times they tried to tell her that Hana's uncle owned the establishment and gave her permission to be there, the girl just couldn't relax for five damn minutes. Even trying to explain to her that it was a casual restaurant, not a club, had failed to ease her high tension.

Haru, however, looked out of place for a completely different reason. Having fooled the bartender into thinking he was eighteen, the bi-haired boy was simply staring down into his half-empty glass, looking like he didn't want to be there at all.

"Anyway," Kyo said, breaking his eyes away from the boy he wanted desperately to reach out for, "this is your party, what are you here cheering _me_ up for? Go have fun. Pull the stick out of Tohru's ass while you're at it."

Uo gave her friend a sympathetic and appreciative smile. "Only if you have a drink with me."

Kyo considered her, before sighing and hanging his head in defeat. "_Fine,_ just one."

"Yeah! That's the spirit!"

He'd never drank before – figure's he'd have a low alcohol tolerance.

.:.

_There was so much more I had to say._

.:.

Haru was wondering how they'd ever escape the reoccuring factor that happened to be the zodiac rat.

Yuki had been watching them all week, seeing the way they seemed to naturally gravitate toward one another, and in all honesty it made him nervous. Yuki had never stared at him so much in his whole life, and even now it wasn't the way he'd wanted it to be. It made him so nervous that sometimes he'd force himself to sit away from Kyo and avoid standing next to him.

After what they'd done together the week before, he knew the cat deserved anything but being ignored.

Kyo had that resigned look on his face one day, from morning till afternoon, and Haru just knew he'd done something very wrong. Quietly, he cursed Yuki for making him so damn self-conscious, something he'd never truly been before, and strictly never where it concerned the people he was in an intimate relationship with.

At least Kyo was in detention, even though he didn't have to be. That made the ox feel a bit better about himself – it was still forgivable, still fixable.

"Kyo?" he'd asked, glancing around. For once, there was only one other student, and he was a nervous looking first year that had obviously never been in detention. The supervisor marked Haru off and told them to be sensible, not too bothered seeing as there was no one he believed would cause trouble, before lying and telling them he'd be back soon.

When the supervisor left, Kyo answered him. "Hey, Haru," he said, sounding at least a little bit more cheerful than he had been all day. Haru noticed that the older boy didn't look at him, though.

"What's wrong?"

"Don't worry 'bout it," Kyo said, waving a hand nonchalantly. "I just have some stuff I gotta do. I came to tell you that I wont be at school tomorrow."

Haru blinked, before glancing to the ceiling and counting the extra day in his head. "Tomorrow's friday," he said flatly, finally taking his seat, his tone making Kyo look at him.

"I..." Kyo paused, "...I'm meeting with Master," he said warily, "but I'll still come over for the night if you want."

Relief wasn't a strange feeling anymore where Kyo was concerned, Haru realised. "Good. That's good."

Kyo gave a small, strained smile, and stood. "Well, I better go."

"You're not staying?" Haru asked, seeing that Kyo had already closed his notebook. "For detention, I mean."

"Uh, you want me to?"

"Yes?" Haru said, like it was actually a legitimate question, and he wasn't sure that was the correct answer.

"Okay...I just wasn't sure."

Haru wondered if Kyo hit his head this morning, and that was why he was asking stupid questions. He accepted the paper Kyo handed to him, and the two of them set into their work, the kid in the back copying their example.

When Haru looked up as the supervisor returned in time to dismiss them, he noticed that Kyo still hadn't written anything, and had just been staring at the page he'd previously written with a blank stare.

He didn't ask until they were near the entrance of the school. "Kyo, are you alright?"

"Yeah."

"You don't seem it."

"Don't I?" he asked, "sorry."

"Don't apologise," Haru shook his head. "Just tell me what's on your mind. After everything that's happened with us, you can at least be open with me."

Kyo froze, a look of anger on his face. It quickly melted away when Haru also stopped walking to look at him. It was replaced with that resigned look again. Haru snidely thought that perhaps Kyo was suffering from post-virginal depression, but he quickly shut up his Black side from making another silent comment.

"Are you ashamed of me?" Kyo asked suddenly, and Haru frowned. "Do you not want people to know what you think of me?"

"I don't know what I think of you," Haru said in shock, before frowning. He hadn't meant to say that.

Kyo pressed his lips together, his narrow eyes looking emptily angry. "You know, I think I won't come over tomorrow. I'll see you monday," he said lowly, turning to walk away.

Out of reflex, Haru grabbed Kyo's wrist, pulling him still. Kyo paused to look at the hand on his wrist, and Haru took his chance, stepping back into Kyo's personal space. The boy glared at him, but Haru hardly have it any notice, pressing their lips together softly.

Kyo responded, even if it was only so slightly. It was obvious he hadn't wanted to but couldn't help it.

He broke the kiss, pressing a gentle one to the cat's temple. "I hope you'll change your mind about that, kitten," he said quietly into Kyo's ginger hair.

The older boy just watched him, bemused, as he let go and turned away, walking home.

Kyo came over the next night, when it was so late Haru thought he wasn't coming, looking at his feet accusingly as though angry they'd brought him to the ox's door.

.:.

_My insides were so cold that I could no longer feel my own skin, even as the rainwater and tears slid across in warm and cool streams. _

_.:._

"H-hatsuharu," Tohru stuttered, bowing stiffly. He stared at the top of the girls head, noticing the way her hair had yet to regain its regular health. The poor girl was still stressed to the max. Hanajima had told him that her grades, although originally nothing impressive, had basically plumetted, just as they had when her mother died.

His eyes softened – _so much death in this poor girl's life._

Just as there was so much pain and loneliness in a Sohma's.

"I forgot flour and sugar, so I have to go out and get some more. Dinner will be a little late. I made some tea, you're welcome to a cup," she said, not meeting his eyes as she tugged on her shoes. "Yuki and Shigure have already sat down for some."

"Thankyou," he said quietly, watching her meek little smile as it came and went, before she dashed out the door and down the path. He stood there for a long time, messenger bag weighing down his shoulder, head thumping with lack of sleep, until he heard Shigure's voice.

"Ah, Haru, you're here," he said, appearing well for the most of it. There were dark furrows around his eyes, but aside from that he seemed almost back to his usual self, if a little muted and grey. "Good, good. I'm sure Tohru offered you some tea?"

"Yes, she did," he said, entering the house after sliding off his shoes. He hadn't set his bag down yet, gripping the strap tight enough to feel his nails clipping his palm. Shigure noticed.

"What's in the bag?"

"...I'll show you," the teen mumbled in reply, passing the dog and heading straight toward the correct room, finding Yuki already sat by the kotatsu. He saw Haru and quickly lowered his eyes, lifting himself up to his feet.

"I'll get another cup," he excused himself.

Haru sat down, resting the bag on his lap, waiting for his cousins to join him.

.:.

_I wish there was nothingness, but there was only things I didn't understand. _

_.:._

He was a little surprised to see the cat pacing along the apex of the roof, one foot daintily infront of the other, as he approached Shigure's house. It would have been a sight to amuse him if it weren't for the obvious agitation his cousin was experiencing, though even then Haru felt his Black side rising to the occasion, the feeling of laughter sizzling on the inside.

Watching Kyo strutting across the roof like that, hands in his hair, rigid with tension about something, was so catlike that he almost stopped to watch a little longer.

It clicked moments later that if Kyo was agitated, perhaps he should go up there to see if he could help. Haru didn't really like heights a great deal, and whenever he looked over the edge of a building he could already feel himself falling even though his feet were still firmly on a solid surface, but for Kyo he'd manage.

He entered Shigure's house relatively unnoticed, aside from Shigure who poked his head out of his office. "Hello Haru," he said, to which the cow simply nodded. He heard the writer sigh and tuck himself back into the room, hearing the man mutter through the paper walls _"hello Shigure, how are you? Is no one ever happy to see me?"_

The small tantrum made Haru smile, even if just a little.

He made his way to Kyo's room, through the external door, and onto the long balcony. There he found a familiar ladder. He'd stepped it before, making his way to the roof to call Kyo down, but he'd never used it to get all the way on the roof before.

He admired the step at eye-level, gripping it tight, observantly scratching at the grain with a thumbnail. He listened to Kyo's pacing footsteps, the incoherrent mumbles, and convinced himself that the height wasn't anything that could kill him..._unless I land on my neck, of course._

With that last comforting thought, he crawled ungracefully onto the tiled slope, watching the brooding cat's back as he continued on his way, until he reached the end and turned around. His eyes brightened a little at seeing Hatsuharu sat there, on the edge, watching him.

Kyo fell to sit on the roof, knees to his chest, elbows crossed over them. He glared at nothing particular, waiting for Haru to come to him. Typical cat.

Gathering a little more courage, the younger boy cautiously rose to his feet, making sure to keep his eye half-on-the-path, insecure steps all the way to Kyo's side. When he sat down, shoulder-to-shoulder with the older boy, he just sat in silence.

"Damn Yuki," Kyo muttered, repeating the words he'd been saying over and over, only this time Haru was close enough to hear it.

"What happened this time?" Haru asked, raising a brow at the cat. Kyo's glare hardened.

"He freaked me out, that's what. Damn stupid, stupid rat."

He wasn't really willing to pry, so he simply sat and waited for Kyo to answer him properly. Realizing that Haru wasn't going to talk, Kyo sighed and allowed himself to relax a little, pressing their shoulders together gently. He glared judgementally at the knees of his jeans as he muttered more about what had happened.

"I thought he was gonna kiss me...or something."

The cold feeling that stabbed Haru in the stomach at those words was new to him. For some reason, hearing that just...shocked him. "What?"

"I don't even know! We hadn't had a fight in a while, and he seemed really stressed or something because he was snapping at me like he had PMS or whatever! He got me mad and I thought fuck it, Tohru's not here, Shigure's upstairs, let's just duke it out," Kyo exclaimed, the words practically falling out of his mouth.

He'd been stewing on this all day so far, it seemed, because he was so obviously relieved to have someone to talk to about it that would actually sit there and listen, not try and get involved and tell him everything he should be doing and how they should be friends. Kyo had never really been able to go to Tohru about his problems with Yuki – the fact they hated one another hurt her for some reason. She took everything too personally, and it wasn't even her family.

After the first rush of sentences, Kyo took a deep breath, no longer glaring at the horizon, but turning to face Haru, seeking some sort of understanding. He continued, sounding much calmer than before.

"So I just stood up, all calm-like, and told him to get up. I attacked him, I always attack him first, and before I knew it, he had me up against the wall. He always gets close when he's about to beat me into the ground, so I just kinda shut my eyes and waited, but nothing happened." Last words said, he looked away quickly, awkardly scratching at his neck, as though breaking it off there would suffice.

Haru quirked a brow, hoping the chunk of ice in his gut would melt quickly. "Keep talking," he said softly, voiced barely enough to even be heard, sounding almost like a prayer.

"So I opened my eyes," Kyo said slowly, turning around to meet Haru's stare again, "and he was just looking at me, with this drowsy kinda look. I didn't know what to think, so I just stood there, because he still might punch me, ya know?" Haru nodded, and Kyo huffed, leaning closer. "He was jus' staring at me, like this...and he started moving closer..."

Haru felt his groin jolt in surprise, clenching his fingertips into the thigh of his jeans to keep from just leaning closer and kissing Kyo right then. The cat was right in his face, sultry eyes the colour of red wine half-lidded and glassy, staring right at Haru's pale lips. They were close enough that Haru could feel the warmth of his cousin's breath brushing his cheek, and he had to grip his fingers even tighter to restrain the compulsion to just lean forward and claim Kyo's mouth.

Kyo's gaze lifted to lock with his own, the cat leaning even closer, until their noses brushed. "And then, out of nowhere, when he was this fucking close to me," Kyo murmured, glancing down at Haru's lips once more before slamming his eyes shut, "he cringed. He fucking cringed. He shoved me, but I was already against the wall, so he just ended up pushing himself away from me, like he was fucking unsticking himself or something. He glared at me, called me something, and took off up the stairs. What the hell am I supposed to think about all that?"

Haru felt even colder when Kyo pulled away without actually kissing him. The feeling of dissappointment he felt when the cat didn't take that last step made him think...had Kyo felt like that? It was obvious that kissing Kyo was exactly what had been on Yuki's mind, but had it been on Kyo's too?

"Kyo," Haru started, swallowing the ill sensation of a lump in his throat, "what would you have done if he did kiss you?"

"I don't know, stood there like a damn statue out of shock?" Kyo growled, wrapping his arms around his knees. "If I was too damn surprised to move when I didn't know what he was doing, I think I would have been totally useless if he actually pulled that stunt off. What the hell was he thinking!"

Hatsuharu wasn't an expert at many things, but he could tell right now that Kyo had absolutely no idea how to approach his housemate, and this had only one solution. "Stay at mine for a few nights, then, until you've got your head together."

Kyo just looked at him, frowning. "It's a school night," he replied tonelessly.

He was about to say that it didn't really matter and his parents wouldn't give a shit, but there was a clatter and Yuki's head popped up over the edge of the roof, hopeful eyes setting on the two of them, and dimming with who he saw.

"Oh, hello Haru," the rat said, pulling himself up another step so that more than just his head could be seen over the edge, hands on the roof. "What brings you here?"

"Just seeing Kyo," he replied, forcefully neutral. Kyo fidgeted beside him, picking up on his insincere tone of voice, but Yuki seemed none the wiser.

"I see. In that case, I wont be a bother."

Normally Haru would have called out to the rat, but he was too angry to remember why. The incident hadn't offended him until he saw his cousin's face, but as soon as that had happened, he remembered the fact that Yuki had almost crossed a line that Haru wasn't too sure he'd be happy about having crossed.

_How dare he._

Kyo snickered once he was sure Yuki was out of hearing distance. "You're jealous? Really?"

"Not jealous," Haru growled, turning around to leer at the redhead beside him, "posessive," he finished breathily, a grin sneaking over his lips. Kyo's eyes widened a little in surprise, a nervous look swarming into his gaze. He had yet to face Black Haru since their relationship had changed, and he obviously wasn't sure what would come with such progression.

Haru felt the need to soothe Kyo's panic, immediately.

Kyo let out a deep gasp when the bi-haired teen was suddenly below him on the roof, pulling him down the slope by his ankle, until there was enough room for Kyo to lay on his back along the face of the tiles. Straddling the older boy, fear of heights forgotten, Haru smirked down at him, bringing their lips tauntingly close.

"Stop thinking about him," Black Haru said quietly, one hand snaking up Kyo's side, barely brushing sensitive skin with his fingertips "stop thinking about what he almost did." The nerves under Kyo's skin jumped, leaving the other teen writhing under him, head craning back, eyes closed. "Just think about me, and what I am doing."

While mouthing at Kyo's neck, he discovered the cat was especially sensitive behind the shell of his ear, the other boy letting out small, shuddery moans at the sensations, arching up into him, aroused almost instantly at the skillful contact. The reaction set off a spark of dominance in Hatsuharu.

"It doesn't matter that he almost kissed you," Haru breathed behind Kyo's ear, "just so long as I'm the only one that does."

.:.

_I couldn't get the image out of my mind, the final image I had of him seared into the back of my eyes._

_.:._

* * *

**A/N:** Yet again, I apologise for any confusion this may have caused. By the end of the story, most of the parts should fall into place. Thanks for reading!  
**MK**


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